DigiKey and Arduino launched their Dream Lab Challenge on July 22 to award four winning creators a custom lab with professional-grade test equipment. The contest is open to makers, engineers, students and innovators through Sept. 30, 2026.

Applicants are encouraged to build and document a project featuring Arduino’s new UNO Q microcontroller board, which is a high-performance, hybrid, single-board computer and microcontroller development board. Projects could be anything from an intelligent robot, an AI-powered vision system, a smart automation platform, or something entirely different and unexpected. Submissions are encouraged to highlight UNO Q’s capabilities that bridge the gap between hardware and generative AI (gen AI), and demonstrate creativity, innovation and inventive ways to use the board.

DigiKey and Arduino will award four contestants with a custom, dream-lab package valued at approximately $5,000 each. The lab’s professional-grade equipment is designed to support future experimentation in advanced vision, robotics, local LLMs, VLMs, Edge AI and more.

“DigiKey is invested in supporting the next big ideas in engineering, and the Arduino UNO Q microcontroller board is an ideal innovative foundation for creators to work from,” says David Sandys, senior director for technical enablement and engagement at DigiKey. “We look forward to seeing the imaginative projects we can bring to life through the Dream Lab Challenge.”

U.S.-based creators who are 18 or older can submit their projects as a maker.io project post using the hashtag #UNOQDreamLab, along with filling out the entry form on the contest page. Winners will be chosen based on creativity and originality, technical execution, use of UNO Q, quality of documentation and potential impact and innovation.